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My apologies, Sona.
Journeying through the terrain of my verse
in these rains,
inconvenienced you
Unseasonal are the monsoons here.
The alleyways of my poetry are frequently damp.
Water gathers often in the ditches.
If you trip and fall here, you run the risk
of spraining a foot.

My apologies, however . . .
You were inconvenienced
because the light in my verse is somewhat dim.
The stones at my threshold
are imperceptible, as you pass.
I have often cracked a toenail against them
As for the streetlamp at the crossroads,
it has remained unlit for aeons
You were inconvenienced.
My apologies, my heartfelt apologies.

Note: Salim Arif is the translator of this poem into English. Following is the original in Urdu.

On the marble edifice of silence
let us swathe ourselves in the sheets of darkness,
and ignite the twin candles of our bodies . . .
When dew arrives on tiptoe,
let it not discern even the whisper of our breaths

What kind of a habit is breathing
What kind of a tradition is it to keep on living
Not even a slight movement in the body anywhere
No shadow in the eyes
The feet are stunned, they keep on moving
There is a journey, that keeps on flowing
For how many years, how many centuries
Keep on living, keep on living

Habits are such strange things…

Note: I translated this poem into English above. If you have the original in the Arabic script instead of the Devanagiri script in Urdu, please let me know.

What you call wandering, Manasi,
I call it a search to know more.
To know each other more.
I have been wandering this earth for so many centuries.
A lost moment from a knot of time, like that.
Found my Nation, then kept searching for my street,
Kept searching for a sign of home in the street for years.
Now I wander in your soul, in your body,
Maybe if I take birth from you, I will find refuge.

A poem
entangled in my chest,
lines
fastened on my lips,
words
like butterflies
won’t sit still on paper.
I sit
for so long
with your name
on this blank paper.
Your name
just your name exists;
could there be
a better poem?